Word: shahs
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SOMETHING out of the Arabian nights" was what Mohammed Reza Pahlevi commanded-and when Iran's Shah of Shahs orders something, he generally gets it. The cost was $100 million, more or less, and the cast included a reigning Emperor (Haile Selassie of Ethiopia), nine Kings, five Queens, 13 Princes, eight Princesses, 16 Presidents, three Premiers, four Vice Presidents, two Governor Generals, two Foreign Ministers, nine sheiks and two sultans. That clearly made last week's shindig in Iran's ancient ceremonial center of Persepolis one of the biggest bashes in all history. Whether it was also...
Cigars and Roses. As the party date approached, the Shah came under increasing criticism on the grounds of expense and taste. Peasants in nearby villages may have been impressed-but not exactly pleased-that the government had spent $50,000 on 50 Lanvin-designed uniforms for the royal court, each requiring one mile of gold thread. As for taste, even the Empress Farah said in an unguarded moment, "There have been a lot of mistakes and lapses" -one of which might have been the choice of pink roses and cigars for signs on rest-room doors. Many Iranians also resented...
Nonetheless, the Shah was determined to stage his show of shows as "a sign to the rest of the world that Iran is again a nation equal to all the others -and much finer than many." Cyrus the Great provided a handy peg. Iran ("home of the Aryans") was settled by an Aryan tribe from what is now southern Russia. Cyrus, a leader of the Achaemenian dynasty of the tribe, accepted Babylon's surrender in 539 B.C., and by the next year had founded an empire that at its height stretched from present-day India to the Aegean...
...represent the Achaemenians, who wore long beards, 200 Iranian soldiers did not shave for months; in the interests of authenticity, the government turned down a Japanese firm's offer of fake beards. There were also Sassanians, Parthians and Safavids-right down to the 20th century, when the Shah's father, General Reza Khan, a professional soldier of near-peasant origin, seized power in a 1921 army coup. He was ousted by the British and Russians during World War II for inconveniently keeping his strategic country neutral, and the present Shah took over...
White Revolution. The big party was actually nine years late. The celebrations were postponed while the Shah, who feared that his country's poverty might set the stage for a "Red revolution," set about accomplishing a "white revolution from the throne." His peaceful upheaval has been amazingly successful. Since 1962 Iran's gross national product has advanced at an average 9.2% per year, to $10 billion in 1970. Per capita income has nearly doubled, from $180 a year...